The previous post in this series is here..
After a quick dinner at the Indian place in the village, when Jr. and me walked back up to our cave room, we were given the news that the little one will not be joining us for the balloon ride in the morning. She will be resting and hydrating and will not be up before the sun. There was to be no negotiation and given my history of saying things like “we have come all this way and we may not come here again.. etc.” there was a family restraining order of me speaking anything within ear shot of the litle one. Gave her a hug, asked her to sleep and we all crashed. It had been a long day. All day tours can be fun but draining. Too much information for the brain and a lot of walking without realizing it.. with the potential to end up dehydrated.
The hotel was told that we will be three people going for the balloon ride. We woke up at 5AM and made it to the hotel entrance where a bus picked us up. After picking up a lot more people we ended up driving to the balloon launch point. There were a 1000+ people waiting around trucks with the balloons and every company had a breakfast table setup with croissants and coffee.
Unfortunately, after an hour of waiting, our ride was cancelled. The winds were too heavy and the air traffic control did not give a green signal. Our guides said “no more waiting, we go back. we will drop you off and you will get full refund”. An hour later we were back in the hotel with only a few photos of us at sunrise to show for it. The little one was still fast asleep. When we went to breakfast later and told her we never went up on the ballooons, she just rolled her eyes and was happy she slept in. Good news was she was back to her normal self. Given our morning was a wash, we just packed, ate breakfast late (almost made it a brunch) and told the kids that we were going down to the village.
The balloon refund came in local currency. It was 120 dollars per person and what were we to do with so much in local currency when we were leaving Turkey same evening? San was determined to exchange it to Euro or USD and we walked an hour and a half to every travel agent, a Western union, local post office, etc. etc. in the Goreme village, with no luck.. Finally one of the travel offices agreed to change it. We lost some in the transaction but it was still better than airport exchange rates. When we walked back to the hotel, the girls were ready to leave.
We took some pictures in the verandah of the hotel. We have to say that this was a unique experience staying in a cave. The Kelebek Cave Hotel was excellent. The food was great. The rooms were good. The service was excellent. It is on top of the hill so everytime you walk down, you get quite a workout walking back up. All said and done, if you are a fit person, this is an amazing place to stay. Strongly recommend it.
A video of the special cave hotel experience…
It was time for the ride back to Nevshehir airport in the shared van. This time it was in broad daylight and the driver was good.
We flew back to Istanbul, then after a two hour wait at the airport and a lot of walking within the airport, flew out to Naples. Was reminded of my Turkish friend again as we flew past
The kids had combined the Amalfi coast with this trip as a “fair” compromise. All of us enjoyed all places at the end. So it worked out. Just before leaving the Kelebek hotel, I was informed that given our flight timings and train timings, we had two choices. Pay 250 USD for a one way Uber from Naples airport to Sorrento or rent a car for all three days which would be the same 250 USD. Six eyes were looking at me.. and I said fine. Will drive. That turned out to be a disguised blessing.
Will continue this series from Naples later today..